A Downing Street spokesman said May had “told the president that there cannot be a normalisation of our bilateral relationship until Russia stops the irresponsible and destabilising activity that threatens the UK and its allies – including hostile interventions in other countries, disinformation and cyber-attacks – which undermine Russia’s standing in the world”. [1]
“Hostile interventions in other countries”. Where, exactly? You have to think for a minute. Oh; they mean Syria where Russia’s military is supporting the government of the country against Islamic State and assorted right-wing Islamist groups who are trying to take over the country and turn it into some kind of a caliphate. This is against British interests because Britain is trying to topple the government (“the Assad regime”) because it is allied with Iran – who is the enemy of Israel, Britain’s ally in the region. Meanwhile the illegal and devastating war in Iraq; the foolish intervention in Libya which tore the country apart are not, presumably, seen as “hostile interventions” in these peoples’ minds.
Cyber-attacks? Which ones? What? No documentation here. But the practice of US cyber-attacks is well-known – e.g the dangerous scheme to destabilize Iran’s nuclear fuel processing machines using a virus.
“Disinformation”? Oh; they mean the RT TV and web channel. This channel presents lots of positive stories about Russia and almost entirely negative stories about the West. It could be said that RT deliberately fans the flames of dissent in the West. But – read the articles and fact for fact they check out. At any event the US (the UK’s ‘ally’) runs an information/disinformation website / radio station broadcasting into Russia – Radio Free Europe – and which by any objective measure is even more blatantly trying to subvert the target society than RT.
The truth is not that these people operate “double-standards”. The truth is that they simply don’t care what they say. No one will call them to account; certainly not the “free press” in the West. They invent these preposterous narratives in which all their actions are sanitized and all those of their opponents are demonised – and live by them. An indulgence of power.
Notes
1. The Guardian
The New Observer 